Welcome to our CHEATfactor Game Review of Evolve. We review the game and then factor in how the available cheats affect the overall game experience. For better or worse, our reviews will help you decide whether or not to use cheats when playing the game.

Playing through Evolve I couldn't help but continually notice how well developer Turtle Rock was able to turns something big, dumb and loud into something smart, strategic and rewarding yet somehow keep the remarkable scale. Though it almost does it's best to limit it's own potential through a lackluster progression system and a thin selection of game modes, the amount of variety in the just how battles play it is near astonishing, especially if you've got enough human players to fill the ranks. If you've got the time to devote that Evolve almost demands, it's more than worth the admission price.

The formula for Evolve is simple, it's four hunters against one monster. Turtle Rock has taken what most games would consider boss battles and turned them into an entire experience - and the result is mostly successful. Maps are large enough to compensate for larger enemies and the game works best when it's cat and mouse mechanic plays out as it should. There's more to Evolve than merely attacking the enemy as the monster starts out weak and grows stronger by feasting on animals and plant life you come across and the hunters are almost forced to work together to successfully hunt and stop their enemy. At it's best Evolve is a methodical and intriguing shooter full of bombast, but it's not always that way.

Evolve has more than it's fair share of breathtaking moments and more often than not they naturally play out. Playing as the hunters you'll have to look for contextual clues to actually track down the monster like birds that appear around killed prey and Evolve works best when everyone in your party buys into the game and plays the way it's meant to. Evolve does a great job at layering each character and class to make them compliment each other quite well, for instance it'll be easier for your assault character to land more lethal shots to the enemy after another one of your other party members ends a tracking dart that allows you to see the monster been through walls. Evolve encourages cooperation on the hunter side, and though I did have a few matches where people went off on their own (more on that later), most went as they should.

I expected playing as the monster to be the easier of the two sides of Evolve's conflicts, but it's remarkably skewed the other way. While the initial urge is to just go out and go smashing, you'll have to play smart and use all of the monsters abilities to quickly gain enough strength to confront the hunters head on. As mentioned before, monsters start off small and weak but gain size and strength as they earn kills on smaller beats throughout the world; stage 2 is a bit stronger and you unlock more abilities and stage three is damn near unstoppable. Playing as a nearly unstoppable beast is a lot of fun, but getting there is even more rewarding.

There's a ton of depth hidden inside Evolve, but unfortunately it's hidden behind a somewhat lacking progression system. You'll unlock new characters, weapons and methods to take out your enemies by maxing out your already playable character's stats, and while that doesn't seem like that big of a deal, I found players being more focused on finishing those tasks than helping eliminate the monster in several of my matches, a big problem for a game that preaches so much cooperation like this one. There's also a steep drop-off with the progression system as when you unlock all of the different hunters and monsters, there's not much else to do in Evolve, a major issue since by that point you'll have played a good amount of the game, and thus will have seen most of what the game has to offer.

It's just a shame that Evolve feels so thin in most cases as it's almost begging for more. This is by and large a multiplayer game and like Titanfall before it, playing single-player is just playing the same modes with bots. It's fun and all, but I couldn't help but want to know more about the world Turtle Rock has created for Evolve in a story mode. There's the evacuation mode, which puts you in a series of matches where the previous outcome has an effect on the next match (failing to protect a power plant results in nuclear gas clouds in the next round for instance) but Evolve is missing a dedicated story mode. The character's banter hints at larger backstories but there's not much here beyond that.

Like it's starring hunters and monsters, Evolve's end-game is greater than the sum of all of it's parts. It takes big, dumb and loud boss battles and turns them into big, dumb and loud boss battles...with a bit of strategy. There are great tense moments here, and it's extremely satisfying, regardless of which side of the battle you're on. It may feel older than it should, a lot sooner than it should and the lackluster progression system often speeds up that process, but Evolve is still a fun shooter, especially if you've got enough friends to fill the ranks.